by Richard Read

Satellites do many awesome things: they allow us to communicate with friends and family, they help us find our way home when we're lost, and
of course, they bring us television -- delicious television. But there
are a few downsides to those hunks of metal and circuitry floating above
the surface of the earth, and for drivers in Britain, one of those
downsides is now speed traps. (Those of you who think traffic
cams are the worst thing since Crystal Pepsi might want to jump to
the next article.)

In London and Cornwall, a pilot program has just been launched that combines all the fun of terrestrial speed cameras with the creepy
omniscience of GPS. In a nutshell, the program -- called "SpeedSpike" --
uses positioning satellites to track motorists as they travel between
traffic cameras. By calculating the time it takes a driver to move from
one point to the other, SpeedSpike can determine whether or not the
motorist has been speeding. When the car reaches the second camera,
calculations are made, and if they're out of line -- blammo! --
a photo is taken of the license plate, and a ticket is mailed to the
owner.

Obviously, this is terrible news for leadfooters. Garden-variety traffic cameras are confined to a particular area: if you're not driving
by one, it can't give you a ticket. But SpeedSpike allows the camera
system to expand exponentially, with far less on-the-ground hardware. As
long as you drive past two cameras, your speed can be measured and you
can potentially receive a citation. Taken to its logical extreme, the
British government could roll out enough camera checkpoints to cover the
entire nation.

And just because this is happening in Britain doesn't mean that those of us in North America can relax: the company behind SpeedSpike, PIPS
Technology, is based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Not to get all
survivalist or anything, but: yikes.

Of course, the real problem with SpeedSpike goes beyond overbearing traffic enforcement: SpeedSpike opens the door to serious breaches of
individual privacy. It's hard to argue that anything as illegal and
dangerous as speeding is a-okay, so SpeedSpike itself is, in theory,
justifiable. But the jump from traffic enforcement to more insidious
applications is a short and easy one.

Unfortunately, just like cell phones, in-car internet, and Lunchables, the genie is out of the bottle on this brand of technology. PIPS's pilot
program might fail for any number of reasons -- political, logistical,
or otherwise -- but the idea is there, and the technology is there, so
our guess is that the service itself will eventually be there in some
form or other. As drivers (and voters), we need to make sure it rolls
out in a way that ensures safety while also respecting the privacy of
individuals.

http://www.thecarconnection.com/marty-blog/1044543_smile-for-the-ca...